Emails in on McLish, Kolb, Jerry Jones World & Class 6A
The new emails are in, and readers are worried about OU-Texas, enjoyed the Hall of Fame stories about Cal McLish and Jon Kolb, and want to debate the Class 6A enrollment disparities.
Let’s get to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. Mark: “As an Oklahoma State alumnus and fan, I want to thank you for the column on Jon Kolb. I have read your work for years and, in my opinion, this is your best piece. I didn’t attend OSU during the time Kolb was there, but I did follow him when he was with the Steelers. I have never met him and he sounds like a class act.”
I think you’ve got Kolb pegged correctly.
Matt: “Very nice article on John Kolb. You really put some quality articles together from time to time. I live in the Dallas area, but my friends tell me you also poke Jim Traber with a stick on the radio.”
You’ve identified my true calling.
Donna wrote about Cal McLish: “Thanks for the fine article about Cal. He rightly deserves to be inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. One of the most interesting facts about him is his full name: Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuscalooa McLish. You may want to include this as a postscript in the Oklahoman or in your radio show.”
Well, one of Cal’s middle names is Tuskahoma, not Tuscaloosa, which is too bad, because Tuscaloosa would be the absolutely coolest name of all time, not that Tuskahoma is chopped liver. By I’m in no mood to go writing about McLish’s long name. Seems like that’s all that anyone ever remembers him for, and McLish has gotten a little tired of it himself. I’d just as soon write about his baseball stories, not his name.
Sue: “I appreciated the article on Jon Kolb and wanted to share some kind of weird facts about him & me, even though I am much older than he is and we have never met. I believe he lived in Ponca City for a while; I now live in Ponca City. He was an OSU Cowboy; my husband & two of our kids are OSU alumni and Cowboy fans. He played for the Steelers for years; I grew up in Pittsburgh, love the city, am a big Steeler fan and have trained our children to be Steeler fans (not easy in Dallas Cowboy country). And the last thing is, Jon Kolb now lives in Grove City, Pa. I went to college at Grove City College, a wonderful liberal arts college there. I don’t know what this all means, but I somehow feel a kinship with Mr. Kolb.”
I think we’ve got a Twilight Zone episode.
Now, on to Jerry Jones World. Tommy: “I write you once in a while when you pique my need to respond, which you did with your story on money in sports, which you handled through a discussion of Mr. Jones’ new stadium. I want to tell you how the rush to money of sports has affected me. I expected this. In 1993, Notre Dame was coming to the Cotton Bowl to play A&M. My son wanted to go. I called and got tickets immediately. We went. He and I both loved it and we signed up for tickets yearly. This is our first year out of the loop. Last year we had five tickets on the 45-yard line, under the overhang, on the west side. Fine view. I even got a break on my tickets because of longevity. The cost of the five tickets plus parking plus a free program was about $300. Then the Cotton Bowl moved. I got the chance to buy five tickets at about the same comparable location. The tickets themselves cost $250 apiece. Needless to say, I declined the offer. But no big deal. No desire to redo the situation. I had a great 16 years at a fine spectacle. Good luck to them and all they want to accomplish.”
Tommy is a fine representative of the empowered fan. No griping. Just walk away. Have you not learned that on the car lots of America? Walk away, and the prices goes down.
Clay: “Your article raises some questions. We all know money will be a huge factor, especially if the fans enjoy the stadium. What about the Cowboy season ticket holders in certain areas having the right to buy tickets for all events before anybody else? This is the case for the BYU game and Cotton Bowl. It would be a huge loss of quality seats for the universities.”
No way would OU or Texas agree to letting Jerry Jones control tickets. That’s a deal-breaker.
Bryan: “I was in New York this weekend and met a Wall Street broker who is a Penn State graduate. The conversation turned to football and he said he goes back to Penn State for games every year and also has a tradition where he and a friend pick a great college football game and go see it. This year they are going to Florida-LSU in Baton Rouge. He talked about the SEC and all the great places he has been. Then he said, ‘I can tell you of all the places and games I have ever been to the OU vs. Texas game in the Cotton Bowl last year is the best atmosphere and game I have ever seen.’ He went on to talk about the fair and how unique the setting was. This is my problem with articles like the one you wrote. We have the greatest environment in college football and one of the best in all of sports in early October every year. Why would we want to mess with that? We can go down and play in Jerry’s monster dome for Big 12 Championships and neutral site games like BYU. But why would we ruin a good thing? It simply makes no sense. I don’t doubt that our fans will be saying the same thing that was in your article. Somehow us Okies act like bluebloods ever since we redid Owen Field. But do you here people in Boston complaining about Fenway Park or Chicago complaining about Wrigley? Those places are dumps compared to the new Jerry World. I have no doubt that it will be nice to go down there and cross my legs and order a cocktail. I can have all the comforts I need. But for one Saturday a year I really don’t care about sitting down or being comfortable. I want to watch the greatest college football game in the best environment in all of sports. So please don’t mess that up for me. I can have the best of all worlds and go down to Jerry World twice this year. But do I need to experience it three times? All I ask is instead of talking about what we don’t have, why don’t you talk about what we do have. That is the best atmosphere you can find in sports!”
Man, why didn’t I think of that, writing about the OU-Texas atmosphere? Bryan said it himself. OU fans will come away from Jerry Jones World wowed. And by the way. Not necessarily in Chicago, but in Boston they always talk about scrapping Fenway Park. I don’t know if they ever will, but the possibility is on the table. That’s all that’s going on here. Jerry Jones is on the table.
Alan also took the Jerry Jones World tour: “My tour guide also talked about Lee Ann Womack’s zit. It sounds like we may have had the same guide. But mine also said three different times that OU-TX would be moving there in 2013. Did your guide say the same?”
No. Sounds like those OKC canal boat guides who promise a Planet Hollywood at Bricktown.
Tom: “A couple of weeks ago, I happened to be in Dallas waiting for the Red Sox-Rangers game and decided to do a test run through the new stadium by going to the soccer games between Costa Rica-Guadeloupe and Mexico-Haiti. I sat in the upper level for the games. I know a lot of people have gone on tours but several things stood out for me. There is no doubt that they spent the money on three things: the span, the retractable roof and the giant video boards. First, upstairs you are so high that you will watch the game on the video board. My thought is that if I go there and watch the game on the video board then why did I go? I could have accomplished that in my living room. Second, besides being big, I really didn’t see anything special, in fact, I thought the seats were cheap plastic. Not being able to circle the entire stadium concourse on Level I was annoying when trying to get around. Finally, the traffic is an absolute disaster right now. The Mexico game had 80,000 and traffic was jammed for hours following the contest.”
I think you’re being a little hard on the seats. They seem fine. But you’re right; the price tag is bloated by that video board, which is beyond huge. But the upper deck at Jerry World seems no higher than the upper deck at OU. And people fill the upper deck at OU with no video board.
Now for the Class 6A debate. Tom: “Your article on 6A schools was right on target. However, there is an underlying problem with the system other than competition. Broken Arrow, Union and Jenks are so large that some of the students do not get the opportunity to play sports or have an opportunity to participate in other school activities. I just wonder how many potential athletes, cheerleaders and band members are never seen or have an opportunity for scholarships because they go to such large schools that they are eliminated before having a chance. I believe those systems have planned the growth and size for the purpose of being dynasties. This is very unfair for the student body as a whole in the participation/learning process.”
I don’t think many kids are missing out on scholarships. But I do think some kids are missing out on memories.
Marc: “You hit the nail squarely on the head and touched on an issue that has needed to be addressed for some time. Maybe McGuinness does have some advantages, and especially as the largest 4A school. But they are close to the same size as most other 4A schools because of the ceiling on the classification. The disparity in 6A is huge because there is no ceiling. I have never understood why the 6A coaches outside of the top four or five largest schools don’t push for something to equal the playing field. I like your idea of making the class smaller, but then 5A might get watered down with the additional teams that would drop down. That would force a trickle down to the other classes. You could do the same thing by making two playoff divisions in 6A. Four teams from each district go to the playoffs. Send the two with the largest enrollment, regardless of where they finish in district, to Division 1. Send the other two schools to Division 2. You would have the same amount of playoff games but there would be one additional championship game. Play them back to back on the same field. You would not have to worry about Union or Broken Arrow beating up on Enid or some smaller 6A school in the play-offs. A much better competitive balance. Have a champion for both 6A divisions. It works fine in Texas. If we don’t do something like that, then they should consider another division, like a super 6A. Four districts with four teams each.”
I like the discussion and I like ideas. But we don’t need an extra state champion and we don’t need another class.
And finally, a potpourri. Bob is upset with modern baseball wardrobe: “Baseball pants! I’m sick of watching baseball players in their stupid looking pajama pants. Socks had unique design and were part of tradition.”
Well, I like the old baseball uniforms as much as the next guy, but I’d be lying if I said I paid any attention anymore. So the high-socks look has gone out of style? I say we blame it on Bud Selig or Jose Canseco, since they get the blame for everything else in baseball.
Aggiefan wrote about my blog on A&M’s bad decision to fire R.C. Slocum: “R.C. is and will remain a loser. He could not beat a major college program and would lose the bowl game. I would rather the Aggies lose than keep that loser. Plus the only thing that matters is winning the national championship, which is what counts in any sport.”
I’m pretty sure there’s an Aggie joke in here somewhere. Something along the lines of, A&M is so tired of losing to Tennessee, the Aggies are going to start losing to Baylor.
Justin: “Easy to look 20/20 from afar, huh? But the reason we fired Slocum is we wanted the next level. A national championship. Heck, we gave Slocum 12 years.”
You know what? I let this national championship talk slide on the previous email. But this is just silly. If firing coaches led to national titles, schools would just switch out every year. These A&M fans are making my case. A little patience goes a long way. You gave Slocum 12 years, and he gave you winning football. Then you gave Slocum the boot, and instead of gaining a championship, you lost respectability.
Marc, a Texas fan, wrote about Mack Brown: “Thank you for the excellent column about Mack. It isn’t locally popular to be objective about the enemy coach, but you told it like it is. Mack is the perfect fit at Texas and I wouldn’t trade him for anyone out there. And just think, we almost had Gary Barnett instead. Cooler heads (and richer alumni) prevailed. Worked out pretty well.”
Yes, it worked out. But make no mistake. Barnett is a heck of a coach, too. You go to the Rose Bowl with Northwestern, there’s nothing you can’t do at Texas.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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